


The way he wants it

by flutter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-02
Updated: 2012-03-02
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutter/pseuds/flutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life before, and up to when, Sam leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The way he wants it

**i. His Wife Died**  
  
John Winchester had clutched his boys to his side the night their mother died. Their home burned hot in the inferno that engulfed their mother’s body. Their things destroyed and gone forever, no matter how often little Sammy reached out in the night for his blanket, rabbit… mother.   
  
In the shadowed rooms he shared with Dean and Sammy, John saw his wife, still pinned to the ceiling of Sammy’s nursery. He saw her there each night he closed his eyes—each night he fell, exhausted from hunting and running, back onto the hard bed of whatever rundown motel they were in. And when the adrenaline passed and John could catch his breath, he’d turn to make sure his boys were tucked in and asleep, safe under the sheets of the double bed next to his own.   
  
Every night they were exactly where he left them, as safe as they could be from what he hunted. He left to do what he set out to so those many years ago: find their mother’s killer. Leaving his kids only widened the hole in his heart, giving room for the sharp pain, and fear, the regret that ceaselessly plagued him.   
  
**ii. Then They Were Alone**  
  
It was just him and his boys. Dean, who was the strongest kid he had ever crossed paths with, and a bit too like himself. Then there was Sam, his Sammy—his own little wonder.   
  
“He’s special, John,” Mary had once said to him. He heard the echo of her words in his dreams, though John didn’t need them to know their truth. There were things that just… happened when Sammy was around. But it was Dean who John saw having the power; a boy with so much love, and a fierce loyalty that sometimes surprised John with its intensity.   
  
It was Dean who, when he heard the shrill screams and pleas from his father’s mouth— _Come down, Mary, please; let me catch you, I swear I’ll catch you, I’ll catch_ —would move to the side of his father’s motel bed and touch a small hand to his damp forehead as he thrashed side to side.   
  
John had been startled one night to wake up and find his eldest son’s hand pressed flat and warm against his brow. When he asked Dean why he slept like that, his son simply said, “When I touch you, you stop.” John didn’t know if he had fits while he slept, but he knew that some nights the dreams seemed to fade into the background. The fear dissipated as a sense of security billowed around and comforted him. The darkness suppressed the threatening flames—flames that no longer leapt toward him with his wife in the center of them all. There was only the black.  
  
  
 **iii. And Dean Wanted To Hunt**  
  
When John had told Dean to take Sammy and run, what John had really meant was, “if I can’t save her, then I’ll die with her.” But in the heat of the flames, his wife’s wide eyes stared down at him with the pleading look that, John would come to realize, only a mother could wear.  
  
So, John Winchester lived. And each new town he and the boys traveled to was a new place to search. With each failure at finding what killed Mary, he came across some _thing_ that was almost as nasty, and just as deserving of an end.   
  
It was with grim pleasure that John noticed his eldest son taking to the idea of the hunt. When Dean, freshly turned eleven-years-old, turned to John and asked to join, he noticed a serious gleam in his son’s eyes—the eyes of a child who should be riding bikes with friends, not asking to help his father kill monsters.   
  
John was on the verge of saying yes when Sammy peered out from behind Dean. Where Dean looked at his father with serious intent, it seemed to John that there was something else entirely in his youngest son’s eyes. In the shimmer of tears, a plea—John could see Sam’s worry for his older brother, his fear of being left alone.  
  
He dropped to his knees in front of Dean, gripping the small shoulders of a boy he felt pride in. With a soft voice, he forced himself to say, “Not just yet, Dean. You could help me, but I need you to take care of Sammy for a little while longer.” When Dean’s lips tightened and he nodded with a, “Yes, sir,” John pulled him into a fierce hug. He heard the escape of a sigh from behind Dean. John loosened his hold enough to pull Sammy into the hug, briefly squeezing them hard in the circle of his arms before letting go.   
  
John turned and marched from the motel room, making sure the door was locked behind him.  
  
 **iv. But Sam Wanted Out**  
  
 _You have a responsibility to this family,_ John had shouted to his youngest.   
  
He regretted that now, had known his tight hold on Sammy—Sam—was slipping, had been slipping for years. Dean was so reliable, had always been reliable, but Sammy… he didn’t want this life. There were only nightmares and shadows in their life as it was; there was no escape from the monsters and evil. And yet it was the only life John could offer him.   
  
The hunt for his wife’s killer consumed him, body and soul. No amount of research, sorcery, or demon killing had helped him get closer to the truth. And now his son wanted to give up: to leave the family, to pursue a life of false security; a turn toward a false Light rather than facing down the demons in the night.   
  
“If you leave,” John had told him, “then you are _no_ son of mi—“  
  
“And that,” Sam had interrupted, a chill of ice wrapped around his words, “is exactly the way I want it.”


End file.
